Why does barely anyone my age have kids?

[Quietterry]

I’m 25 and had my first young so she’s 9 now and yes I was very young having her but I’m no longer a spring chicken and looking at my cohort who went to school with me out of 200+ people I can count on one hand who’s had kids.

Im not judging them for it I’m just curious on what changed when my mother was my age practically everyone she knew had kids by 25!

I know there’s different theories on this and they probably all have some merit but I’m leaning towards thinking it’s phones. I heard recently some people spend 8 hours a day on their phones.

My nan was in her mid 20s for her first baby of three in the 1940s, and had my mum aged 30. It was unthinkable to someone born in the 1920s to have had a baby outside of marriage, and they grew up with no welfare state so you didn't want to have kids without an earner providing a home and food. My mum was unmarried and 31 when she had me in the 1980s, because she had been to uni and got a good job first. I had my first at 32. So we've only crept incrementally up in age across those three generations, although perhaps getting a phone in my teens added on that extra year?

This sums it up nicely.

I had my one and only DC at 37, and even though I started going out with my husband when I was 20 and married him when I was 30, we just didn't want kids young.

Smart phones weren't really a thing in my early 20s in the mid 00s so that's not the reason. Basically our priorities were career up and running, travelling and weekend fun with friends, then in our early 30s we got married and bought a house, got our last few hurrah out of our system and then started considering kids at 35 when we were actually ready.

We just wouldn't have been good parents in our 20s, we didn't want that life (we weren't even sure we wanted kids until we discussed it before getting married 10 years down the line) and just needed a bit longer to mature and do things that were easier without kids.

I think there's lots of reasons people wait, career establishment and house costs are a massive factor. Also childcare costs are eye-watering (free childcare hours are meaningless round my area as the private nurseries just ask you to top them up) some people just aren't ready and I do think people like to get their ducks in a row regarding career, long term committed partner and housing which usually takes alot of people into their 30s to achieve.

Loads of very obvious reasons, and no I don't think it's phones.

I am in your parents generation or older. I had my first child at 30. I was far younger than anyone else I knew to have a baby. All my friends went to uni, travelled, got careers, then had kids in their 30s or early 40s.

What do you mean by "pre-phones"? You seem fixated on phones. I had a phone when I was in my early teens before you were born.

You’re not understanding averages. Maybe a longer stint at maths or stats would’ve helped.

I am likely your parents generation and I hadn’t had any of my children at 25 .

For the average to be what it is today (31), half need to be 30.5 and under.

So the fact there's only a handful of 25 year olds in your cohort does track...

I had my first child at 28 and nobody I knew had children, I’m now 33 and having my third child. Two of my friends have recently had their first babies but that is it. I’m also one of the youngest parents in our children’s class,

@Quietterry Most families these days are ‘one and done’, so there really isn’t any rush to get tied down so young.

@Quietterry I'm 66. My DD is 28, youngest child. You are younger than my dd and most of my friends started families in their 30s. 1990s.

My DS and DIL, 31, have a baby. They are unusual among their friends. DD is engaged and getting married next year and is one of the first of her friends to do so.

My DC have been busy with uni and professional quals. It has nothing to do with phone time. They also understood contraception.

But not all 100 are going to have kids. And it's not an even distribution.

Unfortunately, maths and statistics aren't your strong suit. It might be worth doing some reading up because so much information online these days relies on presenting statistics misleadingly.

The average age is 31 to become a first time mum so I don’t think it’s insane than you don’t know a load of people who have kids before 25. You might not feel like a spring chicken as you’ve been a parent for 9 years but 25 is still super young.

I had my first at 27 and was the youngest in my friendship group and antenatal group.

So, so many reasons why people are having children a bit later. I’ll be honest someone else’s age choice to have children has never really bothered me

No, it is not "phones." 😂

It's not COL either- the poorest countries in the world have the highest birth rates.

People have choices now. Most people choose to have careers, build healthy relationships with other adults and invest in themselves and in their hobbies. We no longer live in a society where the only choice a woman has is to get married and have children, we have lots of options to find purpose.

We also live in a society where many men have not kept up with this and still thing that it's enough for them to go to work, come home, and be waited on, and many women have realised that not having kids is preferable to having kids with a man like this.

I mean firstly she'd have to exclude the male population from the cohort, so that likely reduces it from 200 people to 100 people.

And then 50 could have them at 30 and 50 at 32 and the average would still be 31. And she'd still not be seeing anyone from her school year with babies at 25.

Men who are willing to settle down and have children before the age of 35 are a bit thin on the ground (or so my younger colleagues tell me).

Most women these days think their twenties are for getting an education, a career, a deposit for a mortgage alongside some fun, freedom and travel. They have choices and want to maximise them and not be tied down.

Last paragraph is really key.

Many men (even ones who’ve been educated with women who have outperformed them academically) still think child rearing is women’s work. Women do not want that and are coming to the realisation that having kids is not the be all and end all: they have many other options as to what they can do with their lives.

Lots of women want careers, uni, house bought, savings & marriage before starting a family.
At 25 I had just started Uni as a mature student !
I enjoyed all my 20s being footloose and fancy free, travelling the world, going to music festivals, thinking of only me,
I didn’t have my first child until I was 35 and I wasn’t ready before then.

I can't think of anything I'd have hated more than have children in my 20s. Everyone is different, but having children wasn't even on my radar back then. Now social media is so readily available maybe people are seeing more opportunities now - travel, career, friends, hobbies etc - and no longer followed school/job/marriage/kids treadmill as much

Of course it's not phones. People starting having kids later long before smartphones and social media.

None of my social circle had kids at 25 either and that was around 2000/2001. Smartphones hadn't been invented and you had to pay to send a text message which could only be about four lines long; we weren't all spending eight hours a day on a Nokia 3310.

It's just changing societal trends. More people go to university. Fewer people can afford their own home. More women have careers. Contraception is easier to access and so, conversely, is fertility treatment later in life.

My mum got married at 20 and had a baby and gave up work at 22, and had her third child (me) aged 31. But she'd also been working full-time since the age of 15 and she and my dad bought a two-bedroom house on very ordinary salaries when she was 20 and he was 21. Life was just very different then. If she'd been from my generation, she and my dad would have been at school until they were 18, then spent three years at university, then would have been renting a home and my mum would have been building a career and it would have been assumed that she would go back to work instead of staying at home until all her children were at school.

Things are just really different now. Lives have changed over the generations.

If you go to a traditional university and pursue postgraduate study or a graduate scheme you are unlikely to be out of education or fully qualified in a profession by 25. More and more people are pushed down these routes.

An aside: god, I miss being 25! I love my daughter dearly but I could not have had the fun I had at 25 with her. I am so glad I have her now and have a different kind of fun!

I would say I only started earning “extra” money around 27 which led to a more comfortable lifestyle. I could not have afforded a baby before my first two pays bumps.

My daughters are early twenties and one definitely doesn't want children, the other is unsure due to the state of world. They are concerned about pollution, costs, future jobs etc.
Also the cost, they'd rather be travelling if they could afford it than having babies. Rent/buying a house is super expensive compared to years ago, plus childcare costs. Many people with children are working two full time jobs to afford their bills. My parents scraped by on one income, good for you that you can afford it.

Education? Trying to be in a stable relationship and housing before kids?

I have a 25 year old family member who has a lovely group of friends from secondary school and Uni. Some are academic and some aren't. They are

• In new relationships wondering if maybe this person is the one and wanting to make sure they know before any children come on the scene.
• Breaking up with boyfriends who are toxic or showing their true colours, knowing they'd never want to have children with them
• On graduate scheme and can see good careers ahead of them if they put the work in now
• Renting their first non-student flats having just finished their degrees or Masters
• Trying to save towards house deposits with a goal of buying a starter home/flat by around age 30
• Planning weddings in the next year or two and want to be married and have a small home before welcoming a baby
• Caring for parents with cancer and in one case early dementia
• At Uni after leaving the first time because it wasn't the right fit/time, worked on their mental heath, got support for neurodiversity and are now doing really well and thriving
• In medical school
• Working abroad or travelling
• Working up the ranks at jobs they entered after A levels or GCSE's and finally seeing promotions and new job opportunities come their way.

To me, there's very very few reasons to have children by age 25 in today's day and age. It can turn out well, but lets be honest, there's some added considerations and implications with having children younger. Some of those can be eased by waiting a few years, getting more economic/academic/employment footing behind you and ensuring (as best you can, because you can't fully) that the relationship is stable, safe, long term, before adding children into the mix.